The universe is a funny thing.  It leads us in directions we are not quite ready fore most of the time.

That for me, came again this summer in the form of a visa denial. I did not get approved for visa I applied for to live in Europe with my German boyfriend, whom I affectionately call H in this blog.  Because of European/US travel laws, it meant I only had 90 days I could legally stay in Europe.  Upon using that time up, I had to leave for 90 days in order to ‘refresh’ my Passport and be allowed back into the Schengen area (90 days in, 90 days out).

I spent hours and hours and more hours in research, paperwork and more research to learn how to stay in the Schengen area at the beginning of the year.  All to be denied and forced to leave my boyfriend I had worked so hard to join (he had to finish up his last year of university in Europe), and add more time to our already ridiculous amount of time apart during the long-distance portion of our relationship. Such is life with an American and German in love; a situation so many people must deal with in long distance relationships that are separated by foreign boarders.

I was forced to decide where to go and how to feel about it.  I decided pretty quickly it made the most sense for me to return back to the States, and live with my family in Minnesota for the summer.  I had been in Denver the past ten years (and in those ten years two of them spent in South Korea for grad school).  This was a really special thing I had been offered, to spend the whole summer in Minnesota with my family, something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.

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